There’s currently an issue with the Kill Shot glyph not resetting the cooldown after firing, and another bug with Concussive Shot not making a difference to run speed at all (Read: Broken). I haven’t yet confirmed that either of these have been fixed, as I don’t use the Concussive Shot glyph and only just recently started using Kill Shot lyph again, but I will update if it’s fixed. I would recommend the Trap Launcher glyph for offensive comps and the extra utility, and raptor strike as an optional glyph you would use if you find yourself being a target dummy again. I don’t find too much use for it though since I’m constantly using every global to get out of melee range, not stay in it.

Marksmanship is currently the go-to PvP spec for hunters. Its massive burst damage, coupled with unparalleled control and mobility, and the utility of Readiness for 2x cooldown makes it the “best” spec overall.

Talent Variations/Choices:

You may have noticed that there is a discrepancy in the specs of high rated hunters. Some dropping Entrapment for One With Nature, some taking Resistance is Futile over Termination etc. The reason for the variations has to do with playstyle, and team composition. I almost never use Snake Trap due to the fact that it breaks or delays my ability to CC with Freezing Trap, and since Ice Trap shares a cooldown with Freezing trap, I rarely ever use it in arena.

Pathing*Recommended* – Most hunters prefer to take this over Imp SS due to Serpent Sting being almost instantly dispelled in arena, and it doing only slightly more damage than an Arcane Shot, which would deal the damage instantly.

Survival Tactics*Recommended* – Amazing talent for 2 points. It’s practically a must have for trapping and the 4 seconds off Disengage offers some extra mobility as well. With the Disengage Glyph, your Disengage will only have a 16 second cooldown. Comparing it to the cooldown on Shadowstep and Charge, you’ll almost always have a way to create a gap between you and the melee you’re kiting.

Entrapment – Adds some utility to Snake Trap and Ice trap. It’s a worthy talent if you find yourself using either Snake or Ice Trap, however in most comps you’ll find yourself using a Scatter Shot into a Freezing Trap. Up to you whether you feel you need the extra root.

Spirit Bond – Most hunters don’t choose to spec into BM to get Spirit Bond due to the need for Survival Tactics in survival. Spirit Bond would be an option to go for if you prefer doing battlegrounds over arena, as the heal is quite useful and you don’t really need to use Freezing Trap in Battlegrounds.

Resistance is Futile/Termination – Most of the time you aren’t using Steady/Cobra shot on a target who is on ~25% unless you’re focus starved. I don’t really find RiF useful because my pet isn’t always on my target, and sometimes I have it on the healer to stop him from drinking. It’s up to you whether you want the free damage from RiF or occasional focus from Termination.

Pets

Tap’s Commentary:

In arena you can call/dismiss pets anytime, so having an arsenal of 5 pets with abilities for all situations is a must. Also note that when you change your pet, even to another pet of the same type, the cooldowns are reset/new. For this reason I have 2 spiders, to web twice. I can use web on one, dismiss it, get the other spider out, and web again.

Birds of Prey – Snatch – Great pet for melee cleaves. The disarm can lower warriors damage entirely, very useful for when you see Collosus Smash pop up on a friendly.

Monkey – Bad Manner – This ability is amazing for a little extra CC. It does not share a DR with trap or scatter.

Moth – Serenity Dust – Not too bad for a class that has no interrupts.

Wolf (wait what?) – Furious Howl – Now, why a PvE pet you ask? simple. When you’re in arena, buffs that last over 30 seconds will stay even after the doors open. Call your wolf out, wait until about 15 seconds left until doors open(there’s a count down message in-game) and use Furious Howl, then dismiss the wolf, and call one of your other pets. When the game begins you’ll have about ~50 seconds of +5% crit.

Overall, Marksmanship is the clear winner for PvP. You just can’t go wrong with its burst damage, Readiness and Silencing shot. However the other specs aren’t too far behind, Beast Mastery is great for 1v1, but Survival is really suffering from the recent nerfs to Explosive Shot and Black Arrow. Black Arrow is no longer specced into due to the poor damage, dispellability, and high focus cost of the shot.

****Coming Soon™.****

– 1v1/2v2/3v3 Guides

– A run down on class abilities(Hunter, and others) When to use what and how.

Thanks for the guide. What would be great would be to actually have a division between arena builds, and bg builds, as well as the pet specs, as the needs differ somewhat. And btw, SO glad your here bro.

just curious tho; i use Skoll as my wolf pet of choice but he doesn’t seem to give the 5% crit anymore… i’m seeing the agility boost instead… am i crazy and misremembering? the only pet i have that still gives the crit bonus are my devilsaurs.

Glad to see more PvP content. I’d like to suggest some focus on the use pet abilities, since they are very useful. For this reason, I may also suggest a crab pet – as it offers intervene despite a slightly weaker version of web.

Spider is cunning = Roar of Sacrifice and Roar of Recovery (focus restore)
Crab is tenacity = Roar of Sacrifice and Intervene.

Intervene is great, use if someones casting a long cast ability on you, if a rogue vanishes use it so their opener is used on your pet instead, use it for intercepting charges etc too.

I love spider for the range and extra duration of root, but intervene is great too. As hunters we have a lot of abilities, and managing these extra pet abilities may be difficult to manage at start – but they really make the difference.

Tap, what are your thoughts on Spider vs Crab? They have essentially the same family ability (4s vs 5s – but that 1s discrepancy is made up for if you spec into Charge), but due to crab being tenacity, it’s always been my go-to pet for PvP since it gets intervene, last stand, and is generally more sturdy.

The main problem with the crab is that it’s Pin ability (similar to the spider’s Web) only works when it’s next to the target. The spider can simply Web the target from range instantly immobilizing the target. It really depends on your play style, but I feel like this is important enough to me in arena/bgs to warrant using over the crab’s Pin.

@Inune I used to use the crab back in WotLK, but I find that now people have wised up to eating traps, and having their healer dispel it off them. I use the spider mostly for this problem, so I can web any melee in 3’s and then get a clean full trap off on the caster I’ve intended the trap for. Also the range on pin is melee, so unless your pet is on your kill target (which it should always be on the healer so he doesn’t drink in 3’s ) you wont get any useful pins going out.

I some problems with this build because it lacks points in Rapid killing, Survival Tactics an entrapment. With Rapid killing on its own it’s meh a best but if you have at least one point in Rapid Recuperation has worth because with 1 point in recuperation you get 25 focus when you kill a target, and with 2 you get 50. That added focus is very helpful in arenas but more so in battle grounds especially big ones like AV. With two points in Survival tactics big benefit is the cool down on your disengage becomes 21 seconds and with the glyph it becomes 16 seconds. With a 16 second cool down it helps in kiting other players, getting away from other players (especially rogues) and can help with getting you in a better position such as if your stuck in combat but you need to be closer to a flag carrier. Entrapment doesn’t look that good but it is, because it gives you a lot of control if you learn how to use your trap launcher and readiness. A good example of the power is I like to place a snake trap down in front of the flag then a few yards away an explosive trap then a frost trap at the start of a war song gulch. When the horde comes in my traps are at least half way cooled down, so often the FC gets entrapped by one trap, gets burned some, then I shoot a snake trap at them they get stuck again, if I can I shoot a frost trap at them, then hit readiness and trap them up twice more if possible. This of course gives my FC time to get closer back to base, gives time for reinforcements to arrive and/or revive. Also entrapment is a melee class’ worst nightmare because traps are tough on them as it is but entrapment is hell for them and entrapment helps level to playing field with rogues and feral druids if used properly. I am sorry this is so long I’ve never written something like this out LOL!

The build itself is incomplete. You still have seven talent points to spend. So where you put those points is down to your playstyle and whether you prefer BGs to arenas. It sounds like Tap is doing more arena than BGs and perhaps the talents you mentioned would be more preferable in BGs. Just my thoughts as I rarely PvP and haven’t done any since Cata launched.

Agreed – if you took a fraction of the time it took you to rant, you would have read the article or added up the talent points spent and seen it’s an incomplete talent tree and all possible talents are then discussed.

A note also on snake traps, in arena they prove troublesome as they do a good job of breaking CC, and so sometimes entrapment is made less valuable as they won’t be used so much in arena, along with freezing trap being more frequently used in a chain of CC.

I have a question that is along the same lines as Omogon: I am currently doing both raids and arena, and in the past I always had one raid spec and one pvp spec, but with the way fights for 10 mans work right now I have 2 raid specs (MM and Surv) for different fights. My question is if there is a macro of some sort that I can make to fill my talent tree after respeccing so that I don’t have to do it manually each time? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

1) This seems to be strongly arena focussed. That is fine, but steady Shot glyph is a waste IMHO on many BG’s. Steady shot hits on a PvP target like trowing a toy bear. In arena were sustained damage is in some fights importtant I see its use, but in BG’s I’m often using cobra shot, because the ISS uptime is often impossible to hold and the MMM procs pretty much never. Just my 2 cents.

2) The issue with the Kill Shot glyph not resetting the cooldown after firing is still there. Because of that I always use the CS glyph. Tried RF, but in PvP I rather have an occasional 1 second shorter CS (and higher burst/pressure).

Note the kill shot bug is not a PvP bug. It triggers on PvE a well, only there it triggers extremely rare. On bosses I have never seen it trigger, but on trash mobs in dungeons I get quite a few non-triggers as well.

Too bad, because else this would be a killer-glyph for PvP. As soon as it is fixed, I’m moving back.

@Armin Yes this spec is incredibly arena focused. As bold or disagreeable at this comment is to most, arena is the only pvp that matters. Battlegrounds are just a mash up with friends, and rated bgs will -never- be competitive. This spec is not intended for battlegrounds, but to be honest, you could play with your points all entirely in one tree and still top battlegrounds these days.

I PVP pretty much exclusively in BGs as BM. I have the KS glyph, and can’t remember having an issue with it in the last month or so.

I suffer through my 5 arena wins every week just for the points. Can’t wait to see the BM version of this . . . especially the pets, as I live & die by the chimera, which can single handedly win a BG by itself.

1) Considering that you really do not care much for Termination as per what you said above, I wonder why you do not have a point in Rapid Killing. With its synergy with Rapid Recuperation, it can be a powerful point with restoring 50 focus on a kill shot. This is often needed since you usually waste a lot of focus to get the kill, and the 50 focus returned help you get started on the next target. In addition, the 10% bonus to the next SS or AI is not a bad addition either.

2) I do not understand why the SS glyph. I agree its a must for PvE, but SS is greatly diminished in PvP, especially with targets possibly going LoS during its cast. Sure a 10% bonus per cast is nice, but wouldn’t the CS glyph be better? It is also essentially a 10% bonus but on a much harder hitting shot. Or are you unable to fire CS off CD enough for it to be worthwhile?

More on 1). Assuming you get the kill shot on the target, for that same point in Termination to return the same amount of focus would require 50/3 or about 17 SSs on the target while it is under 25% health. That seems highly unlikely. However, you do still get whatever Termination benefit you received regardless if you actually kill the target or not.

I’ve spent plenty of hours and thousands of gold testing every sort of experimental pvp spec I could think of. I have considered Rapid Killing, but again, the specs above are arena based, battleground specs are just a few points here and there difference, nothing too major, so I thought I’d focus on arena since it’s the competitive scene for pvp in WoW. As for Rapid Killing, the reason it isn’t used in arena is once you get one person down, it’s usually game over.

SS is used ALOT in arena, to “pool” focus for burst, but the CS glyph does nothing unless you’re firing CS EVERY 9 seconds, if you delay it even 1 second, it’s a waste of a glyph.

I’d like to know what you think of using a croc for MM arena. I have a spider, but find the croc with a little more pazzazz. Blood of the Rhino is nice for the extra heals and charge for the mildly useful Charge ability. RoS is shared by both spider and croc. While Roar of Recovery is nice for needed focus for burst, I find intervene more useful for dmg mit. I’m interested in what others have to say about the croc.

While I tend to not use it myself, I do know quite a few hunters who enjoy sicking their pet croc on a melee and keeping them slowed 50% of the time the entire match thanks to ankle crack.
Personally I prefer to just weave Concussive Shots while using either a spider for web or bird of prey for disarm (other hunters really hate that).

For arena, web is just too strong to drop. You can get away with using other pets at the low ratings, but the lack of a ranged root shows later on in the higher ratings. One interesting thing about the croc’s snare however, is that it isn’t dispellable by any magic effect, or master’s call/hand of freedom(Was on the most recent PTR, may be bug).

I cant answer for arena, but a croc will be great for defendingt the flag in WSG. I did use a hyena when it had tendon rip (same effect as ankle crack), and couple this with conc shot, wyvern sting, and even wingclip they cant shake u off and they wont get far.

When can we look forward to a more advanced pvp guide? A lot of us have been hunters for along time and would like some deeper insight. I’m mm with a non serious team. When can i look forward to rated teams strats and teams that want to rise above a 2k rating and persevere?

My most successful 2’s is hunter/lock, I recently teamed up with a rogue. Ret pallys, disco priests and frost mages are the hardest for me to kill. My 3’s team will be Rogue/Hunter/Ret or Hunter/fMage/Ret depending on whos playing.

Thanks for the guides Tap, its good to see some pvp action going on. You’ve already helped me advance 10fold in bg’s and arenas.

It’s nice to see “THE” PvP spec posted somewhere with an explanation about the spec and choices. I’m looking forward to a bit of an explanation of what gear is acceptable to replace with their heroic PvE counterparts as hunter arena always seems to allow for this.

Also curious to know if this is a spec one should use in rated BGs as it doesn’t provide great burst on plate when rateds usually have a high % of plate especially paladins.

With the way resilience mitigates dmg nearly exponentially stacking resilience is a safe bet at the moment. I’d avoid the crafted Leatherworking sets and go straight for the Bloodthirsty/Vicious gear. Just make sure to go for the 2/4 piece set bonuses first as the extra resilience and agility help the most. In general, you probably don’t want to replace these pvp armor sets with heroic epic gear. This may change with patch 4.1 as resilience will mitigate damage linearly. If you’re really worried about plate on BGs, then roll with Survival spec. Otherwise, go with the spec you enjoy the most.

Hey guys I just registered , but have been a long time visitor. But i just put up a youtube vid and id like some feedback. I am not pro but enjoy pvp this expansion.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sogzc-2LVQE subscribe and like and comment

Thank you, thank you for more info! So I’m not all that far off the mark with my moth pet (she’s gorgeous! Err, ok, she’s very useful too).

But MM… oh noes, I’m SV and I love kiting people with Cobra Shot on the run. I’d be willing to give MM a go… any chance of a MM for PvP 101? I tried MM in PvE once, it felt to me like a lot of standing still and shooting. I probably did it all wrong.

Alright, so I’ll use my dual spec and read Frost’s articles on MM… and hit the dummies, I suppose… but if there’s anything that vastly differs in PvP I’d be very grateful for hints!

Agreed, I appreciate this well-thought-out and informative guide to beginning pvp as MM… but I have been doing pvp as BM since the start, and 30k honorable kills later I am pretty much set in my ways, and really enjoy it. For starters there are a few key abilities that make pvp as BM extra nice: Beastial Wrath is like a second medallion trinket, getting you out of that stun and setting you up for a nice session of spammed arcane shots sandwiched between kill commands, all while completely on the move. And kill command can be activated even if you are out of line-of-site of your target, helpful if a healer is trying to hide behind a pillar or something. And oft-overlooked, Intimidation is a decent stun that can interrupt a desperate heal or stop someone trying to run away. Not to mention how helpful the pocket-heals of a spirit beast can be. I have checked my “healing taken” after a BG or round of TB to see my pet as my top healer. There are more but I am hoping that you might make an entire article devoted to us hunters who love to fight as BeastMasters. Either way, keep up the good work.

I humbly bow before u oh great one…lol…Thank u frost..finally somebody has come up with a fantastic and informative hunter website..specifically PVP info…I look forward(drooling) to ur videos…
Once again thank you for the time and great effort u have put into this site…

Ok I have the mm spec down. My biggest problem right now is shot timing. I’m needing addon recommendations that will help me stay on top of cast times etc and help me know when to interrupt and stuff… any suggestions?

Crisis, in my experience. Start out with a scattershot/rapidfire/hardcast aimedshot. Its high burst damage, and an almost guaranteed crit. Always lay down traps (careful with snake/imo because the dots it will put on.)

When you’re fighting clothies I use steady shot, With leather and up switch to cobra shot for higher damage. You’ll miss out on the Aimed Shot! proc and the bleed from the SS crits but on average against a plate wearer you’ll crit for 3-4k more each time with a cobra.

Stay moving, use deterrence and lay down a trap or two and gtfo. Keep the most distance you can. Also in arenas communicate. careful when you see a CC being cast, you could interrupt it, but why not just trinket out of it and interrupt the big spell cast that comes after that? (like fire-mages casting poly then Pyroblast)

For help w/ interupting and dealing with cast timers, buff notifications and the like there are a few things you can do. Here are the best choices I can think of for situational awareness in pvp.

1. LoseControl – Will Help you keep track of when you/your enemy are cc’ed.
2. Power Auras – Will allow you to show any size graphic or timer when a buff is triggered on someone. This has many uses, not the least of which is to set it up to remind you to use tranq shot when nneeded.
3. TranqShotMonitor or JSB hunter bar – Announces your tranq shots so that you can actually tell what you’ve taken off the enemy. I.E. Did I really just tranq that warrior’s enrage off or did I actually tranq off the rejuv buff from his tree friend.

Last but not least:

The answer to your question is in two parts. In order to keep track of casts and interrupt properly many people use a conjunction of two add ons, or atleast something similar to this set up.

1. A Cast Bar Add-On. Quartz is a good choice, as is ACB Cast Bars, there are many others. It really depends on personal preference.
2. A Name Plate Add-On. My favorite is TidyPlates, but there is Doc’s Nameplates, and many others.

If anyone is looking for a more comprehensive “hunter” user interface, check out kripparrian’s user interace page over at wowinterface.com. It’s labeled Kripp UI. Personally, I took a look at it and made my own similar yet completely different interface, but itll give you a good idea of what a top ranked hunter uses for a UI for PvE atleast.

2 questions..
Why no love for a Dog ?
Its lockjaw “Dog locks its jaws on the target, holding it in place for 4 sec.” is only 1 second less than a spiders web, and ofc it is ferocity with all the dps buffs. Survivability isn’t an issue as it has access to HoP for instant resses if targeted.

Secondly, Assuming that we don’t want ImpSS, is it worthwhile to use Serpent Sting at all in arena?

To Tap, thanks for the guides, as a newbie arena hunter, they’ve been invaluable :)

Not sure why I’m the only one to pick this up, but you have the glyphs listed wrong. There is no Mend Pet as a minor glyph, it is now Mend which is a Major glyph. So now that gives us yet another choice for a Major and leaves a whole in the minors.

Hi, guide is great! I’m kinda new to PVP MM and can’t seem to do much damage (i dont have the best gear yet – i’m at 2.9k resi so some decent pvp gear so far). The guide says that a pro of mm is high burst damage, yet i cant seem to achieve that with my only cd being Rapid Fire. I know once i get my dps trinket i will do much more burst damage, but i don’t see why i should go bm which has many burst moves, including beastial wrath, rapid fire, the trinket and many pet moves. Any suggestions to improve my burst in mm? Thanks :)

It’s a pretty slow process while you’re still gearing for PVP. I found Tap’s guide after getting all the PVP armor and weaps (not the conquest weaps, yet…I don’t do arena so I only get my points from call to arms and bg wins).

I wouldn’t worry so much about burst damage until you’re fully equipped. For now act as the CC: concussive, scatter, silence, and frost traps all help out your teammates, especially in flag carrying bgs. In bgs like ab, av, and eots I used to spend a lot of time in camouflage, scouting out enemy towers and flags.

I wish I had a better answer, but the burst damage will come, you can try reforging into some of the crit strike buffs, but I’d say be patient, work on your elusive game, and when you’re ready to deal damage you’ll be even more powerful.

So is there not a PVP spec for SV Hunters…i have been able to play for a year because i have been in Afghanistan…right now i have a lvl 80 Hunter…and i seem to have fallen behind on my Hunter Skills. anyways im just looking for some guidance i want a Strictly PVP Spec and a Good Raid Spec…Any thoughts…?

I’d love a dps guide/video – I had a one time raid dummy test of 17k and I have never been able to get up to that level again, it’s down around 14k at the best.. I even have two pieces of newer gear (from Conquest Vendor, not Honor Vendor) and my dps went down – yet my newer weapon at 744+ is supposedly “more dps” – doesn’t seem so.

I think one pet thats useful for PVP is overlooked in the pets segment. Crocalisks are fairly helpful support pets with a mild bit of bite. Namely of use are Charge (Immobilize aka Get off me im ranged!) Roar of Sacrifice (Stop hitting me so hard you jerks!) and the Croc specific Ankle Crack (50% reduced movement speed for 6 seconds on a 10 second cool down) thats alot of slows and stops to keep at range, and an emergency get the rogue off me button (lets face it rogues are useless without crits, and it has the same CD as Shadow Dance basically so if you notice a sub rogue constantly popping it you can prevent the brutal ambushes)